Ebony Salad Fork

A very large ebony salad fork with a looped handle, its dark wood enlivened by inset silver circles and rectangular pieces, this is a serving piece conceived as sculpture. The looped handle is an unusual, almost gestural form for flatware, and the inset silver geometry breaks the expanse of ebony with bright, ordered accents.

The pairing of ebony with inset silver belongs to Spratling's mature interest in setting wood against metal, the same sensibility that produced his wood pieces punctuated with silver detail (Morrill, p. 73). At serving scale, the contrast becomes the whole design.

The fork was included in "The World of William Spratling," the exhibition that toured the U.S. in 1965, and is recorded in Cederwall and Riney's Spratling Silver. With that exhibition history and documentation, it is a well-anchored example of Spratling's wood-and-silver flatware, which comes to market only occasionally.